In the manufacture of satellite antenna reflector dishes, fabrication of a reflector dish may begin with the layup of composite materials on a mandrel surface that provides a geometrical shape (such as a paraboloid) for what will become a reflecting surface or sub-surface for the reflecting surface (e.g., front side) of the reflector dish after the composite material sets and is removed from the mandrel. During the fabrication process, attachment points for fixing the reflector dish to a supporting structure (such as a spacecraft deploy arm structure) may be formed integral to or affixed to the opposite surface (e.g., back side) of the reflector dish. The precise shape of the reflecting surface, which is typically specified to have some pre-defined error tolerance, can be affected by the attachment of the reflector dish, via the attachment points, to the supporting structure. Such precision in shaping the reflecting surface can be required for the antenna to achieve the performance (e.g., focusing electromagnetic radiation of given frequency band) required of the antenna of which the reflecting surface is a component.
Prior to fixedly attaching the reflector dish to its supporting structure a tuning process is performed to precisely adjust the shape of the reflector dish so that the reflecting surface conforms to its required shape with the required degree of precision. This reflector tuning process is generally performed by hand in an iterative manner, requiring measuring and re-measuring the reflecting surface after each small set of positioning adjustments is made. The positioning adjustments and re-measuring rely heavily on human manual intervention (referred to as “touch labor”) which can be time consuming and costly. For example, prior art methods of reflector tuning usually take approximately 10 to 15 days to complete. The manual, touch labor process is also susceptible to human error which greatly increases the variability in the tuning process cycle time. This variability can result in unpredictability of both the production time per part and the production cost.
Thus, there is a need in the manufacturing of satellite reflector antennas for a process that can provide benefits such as improving the tuning accuracy of each reflector yet increasing the production rate of reflector dishes while maintaining high product quality.